My hip felt no better when I woke this morning. Since I am not one to rest, I decided to just do my best to keep the impact low. And since I had a rare day off from work, I managed to complete both CrossFit and bike intervals... and to reward myself for all that hard work with a glass of organic wine and a piece of my favorite raw chocolate!

THURSDAY5 AM CROSSFITStrength:pull-up practice(finally figured out the Kipping pull-up! band-assisted, but still my 1st pull-up without jumping off a box to get over the bar-yay!)WOD:For time:800m C2 rower 50 toes-to-bar (T2B)400m C235 T2B200m C220 T2BTotal = 19:48 (and some pretty torn up hands...ouch)

As much as I love yoga studio yoga, I just can't bring myself to pay $15-20 a class - especially when I already have memberships to CrossFit and a local athletic club (for the pool). Yoga in my home gym is almost as good!

No babies, but all the sleep I got instead set me up for a great morning run. When I work the overnight shift, I like to head out for my morning run straight from the hospital - after which I usually head home to shower, refuel, and sleep all day! No excuses.

I've been thinking a lot lately about redefining my goals. My original goal for 2012 was to run the Kalamazoo marathon on May 6. Given my recent injury, trying to get into marathon shape now would be nothing short of stupid. Luckily for me, the race festival includes a half-marathon - perfect! I'll downgrade to the half in May, take a brief bit of time to recover and refocus, and then continue to build for a late summer marathon. By that time, I should have a good strong base to build upon.

My long term goal in all of this is to run an ultra. Ever since my first reading of Dean Karnazes' "UltraMarathon Man" and cheering my husband on at the Vermont 50 Mountain Bike race (which has a coinciding 50 mile ultra), I've dreamed of someday running one myself. I even bought a t-shirt recently depicting the progression: 5k, 8k, 10k, 13.2, 25k, 26.2, Ultra!

For a little extra motivation, I'll do my best to cross the distances off one-by-one in my own 2012 progression. And I think I found the perfect marathon: Michigan's North Country Trail Run. The event includes a half, full marathon, and 50 mile ultra. And supposedly a pretty sweet post-race party Sounds so much more fun than a crowded road marathon. Trail marathon here I come!!

After being up most of the night with moms-to-be, new moms, and new babies, I attempted a post-call run straight from the hospital. I felt tired, weak, uncoordinated, and my HR was at least 10 bpm lower at any given point that I would have expected based on my RPE. Oh, and it was raining. What did I expect? I was operating on a couple of very poor quality 1-1.5 hr naps, and the adrenaline of being on the labor & delivery floor had faded. I've had some truly great post-call morning runs in the past (followed by some truly great naps), but today it just wasn't in the cards.

It was a mere 6 degrees F in SW Michigan this morning, too cold to bring my dog along, but not so cold I had to resort to the dreaded treadmill. My hip was a bit angry from the get-go, but didn't get any worse over the course of the run. I see the orthopedic surgeon Monday. I do NOT want surgery, but I do want to run without pain. And that's exactly why I am signing off to do my PT before I go to bed, despite the fact that I am completely exhausted and would love nothing more than to lie on my butt and eat raw chocolates. Happy weekend everyone!

@vivalasvegans - yes! As a matter of fact, today I am taking a much needed rest day (from formal exercise at least). I always try to listen to my body and allow it the time it needs to recover. As one of the CrossFit coaches likes to say, every once in awhile you need to take a day off and do nothing but eat!

Great news - I saw the ortho hip surgeon today and he encouraged me to continue to go the conservative route. I'm pain free 85-90% of the time, and no activity seems to make the pain worse (although I do occasionally have some pain when I run). Phew!

This is exactly what I wanted to hear, especially since Coach B and I put our heads together this weekend and laid out a back-to-basics injury prevention plan. Essentially, I'll go back to day 1 of my 6 month marathon plan, refocusing my efforts on Michigan's North Country Trail Marathon in August (so much more fun than a standard road marathon and one step closer to my ultra dreams). This time around, Coach B is taking me out of CrossFit and putting together a traditional strength and conditioning program of compound movements (think deadlifts and squats) designed to boost my base strength and protect me from future injury. It's brilliant really, although I know I'm going to miss my daily WODs!

The new plan kicks off next week, but until then I plan to have a little fun with CrossFit, like today:

Strength:Bench Press12-9-6-3(45-65-75-85(fail)) this is exactly why I need to go back to basics! Weak.

Motionislife wrote:@vivalasvegans - yes! As a matter of fact, today I am taking a much needed rest day (from formal exercise at least). I always try to listen to my body and allow it the time it needs to recover. As one of the CrossFit coaches likes to say, every once in awhile you need to take a day off and do nothing but eat!

Definately, rest is CRUCIAL. If there was one thing I could change or alter back in my running days I probably would have taken a little more time off ~ on my big running weeks I was clocking up close to 200km, usually around the 150km mark though.

Good luck anyway, I just jumped in and read through this second page. What are your race goals for this year?

@Mini Forklift - my race goals are constantly evolving (mainly due to work schedules and this recent injury). My goal for 2012 is to run my first marathon, and make it to the finish line injury-free. I hope to build on that in the long term with ultra running and/or ironman. At present my target marathon is Michigan's North Country trail marathon in August.